Betsy Patricia Speare

Betsy Speare, 49, died 28th March 2018 at her home in Seattle, Washington after a difficult six month battle with cancer.

Ms. Speare was born on July 31st, 1969 in Lynwood, California to John Speare and Charlotte Zyskowski (Speare). Her brother, John, was born in 1971. The family moved to Washington State in 1974 where her parents divorced. Betsy attended a one-room school house in Onion Creek, Washington for her first two years of school. In 1979, Betsy's mother married Martin Zyskowski, who had three boys: Mike, Andrew, Jamie. She graduated from Lewis and Clark High School in Spokane, took a few classes at the community college, and then joined the Army. In basic training, Betsy met her first husband, Mike Macris. They lived for a time in Nurnberg Germany and in Alabama. She eventually found her way back to Spokane where she completed a degree in Computer Science at EWU.

In 1997, Betsy moved to the Seattle area and got a job at Microsoft. Betsy excelled in the software world. She quickly moved through the development team to release management and led multiple successful releases of huge software projects at Microsoft. She worked hard to bring other women into technical leadership roles. She mentored many women, both informally, and as an inaugural member of the Microsoft Women's Leadership Council. After a successful run in multiple teams at Microsoft, Betsy left the company in 2012 and took her talents to a number of smaller companies and startups where she continued to grow her love and expertise of product development.

During her time at Microsoft, Betsy married Brady Hjort. In 2006 they had a baby girl, Olivia Hjort.

In 2012, Betsy settled in with the love of her life, and married Andy Camp.

Betsy loved travel, always inviting everyone to join, and in her generous spirit, often offering to pay for all. Betsy's niece, Maddie, was the recipient of numerous travel junkets with Betsy, Andy, and Olivia. Betsy also had a crew of girlfriends who enjoyed long weekend trips up and down the West Coast.

In recent years, Betsy served as board chair at KapKa Cooperative School. During her tenure, Betsy orchestrated raising nearly $300K to complete installation of a fire sprinkler system. She is credited as a central figure in keeping the doors open at KapKa during a tumultuous period in the school's history.

Betsy carried on her mother's love of entertaining and brought together her community with exceptional cooking and intelligent conversation.

Betsy is survived by her husband, Andy Camp, and her daughter Olivia Hjort. She also leaves behind a large extended family of brothers, sisters, in-laws, step-parents, nieces, nephews, uncles, and cousins.

She was preceded in death by her mother, Charlotte Zyskowski of Spokane, Washington, and father, John Speare of Barstow, Washington.

A Celebration of Life will be held at the

Hyatt Regency Lake Washington,

1053 Lake Washington Blvd N,

Renton, 98056.

Sunday, April 22nd,

between the hours of 2-4 PM.

Memorial contributions may be made to The Forgotten Children's Fund.

Hoffner Fisher & Harvey

Guestbook at harveyfuneral.com

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